“That one can convince one’s opponents with printed reasons, I have not believed since the year 1764. It is not for that purpose that I have taken up my pen, but rather merely to annoy them, and to give strength and courage to those on our side, and to make it known to the others that they have not convinced us.”
G.C. Lichtenberg (1742 – 1799), courtesy of 'Deogolwulf'

Tuesday, 18 April 2017

Just for Big Henry

As I indicated earlier, the entire holiday weekend was a big, fat waste of time because 'Classic FM' were playing their way through the 300 top pieces of classical music as voted for by their zillions of listeners. 'Big Henry' was rather grumpy because none of Ludwig's magnificos made it into the top three but if it's any consolation he had three in the top ten: No.9 and No. 6 were 8th and 7th respectively and the 5th piano concerto was, rather appropriately 5th . The No. 7 came in at 18th but to my own irritation the 5th symphony, the greatest piece of music ever written in my humble opinion, only made it to 31 on the chart.

Anyway, the top three were exactly the same as last year:

3: Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis: Ralf Vaughan Williams

2: Piano concerto #2 by Sergei Rachmaninov

1: Lark Ascending by Ralf Vaughan Williams

And yes, you are quite right, Henry, that most of the voters are English but according to Classic FM they receive huge numbers of votes from all over America, too. Personally, I think Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto deserves to be up there in the top three but he only made it to #11.

Comments

You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

I passed this information on to my wife - who informed me we had listened to it last night! I was reading and had my "spoken word filter" in place. This enables me to listen the music and but not to the inane chatter and adverts that adorn Classic FM.

My late mother was a classical music freak and what little I learned came from her and a class in Fine Arts in the 8th grade. It amazed me that a cello could be one of the most evocative instruments in an orchestra! Thus my appreciation for string sections...including the viola. Pianos, not so much. French horns I like a great deal.

Quite right, Whiters, the cello is the very greatest of all instruments.

Honestly, some of you are such a bunch of grumps! Yes, the ads are irritating but there aren't that many of them and anyway it gives the missus a chance to make me another cuppa! And if you don't listen to Classic FM then it would have to be BBC Radio 3 where you probably get three hours of the Concerto for Vacuum Cleaner and Foghorn as composed by the very latest Japanese modernist!

Just read the top twenty from yesterday and say that you really wouldn't want to hear any of them!

It's no surprise Williams's highly accessible string orchestral pieces are popular. Likewise for Barber's 'Adagio for Strings', one of the few of his works that's easy to take. Though not on the list, the obscure Brit composer Frederic Cliffe is definitely worth a listen.

JK, don't think I'm not grateful but after reading the first three paragraphs of your link I began to lose the will to live! Apart from the fact that I didn't understand any of it, it sounded like SoD giving me one of his computer lectures!